“Sustainability” – the word spoken in recent times

In recent years, certainly one of the most spoken words, written, dissertadas and commented it was “sustainability”. Often, it is expressed in the form of “sustainable development”. In both cases, starring for some time numerous environments, from elementary school classrooms through homework, school projects, articles, dissertations, theses, occupying almost the centrality of a dozen courses, technicians, technologists and superiors. Converge on the main point of major global conferences sponsored both by the private sector, how much by the Governments in all corners of the Earth, and even by the United Nations. The idea of sustainability is today subject to a series of documents, protocols and policies.

Such evidence shows that “sustainability” and “sustainable development” have a prominent place on the stage of development reached by humanity. And that is the position that we are led to do three simple questions, but relevant to understand the time in which we live: 1ª) what is sustainability and sustainable development? 2ª) why bother with it?; 3ª) How this translates in the everyday life of the people?.

According to the dictionary, “sustainability” is ‘ quality or condition than is sustainable. From this sentence we can see some degree of subjectivity about what the meaning of “sustainability”, so the definitions have minor variations, subject to who sets out to describe them. Etymologically, the word comes from the Latin sustain sustainable, meaning sustain, support and retain (source: www.significados.com.br).

In General, we can say that are concentrated in the word “sustainability” concerns about how humanity will continue developing a vital dependence on natural resources, in turn, not always renewable and exhaustible, in many cases, insufficient to meet such demand for the production of consumer goods. It is necessary to consider also that the technological and scientific progress does not translate fully into human development.

Despite the advances that we’ve had, there are still scattered in many places of the glaring social inequalities, Land mismanagement of natural resources, poverty, misery, war and an infinity of other problems that makes it questionable, first, if we live in a sustainable way, second, if the way we are walking we will ensure a world in living conditions (and not only) for the next generations.

Wherever the word “sustainability” evoke opens a space, an opportunity to think about the viable paths for humanity. The idea of sustainability invites us to review concepts and beliefs, calls us to rethink our living and giving meaning to him, giving true meaning.

I want to invite you to think about “sustainability”, and to review attitudes, even a change of habits, so that we can walk together toward a more sustainable life, to give our simple contributions to the emergence of a more human society, toward “sustainability”.

Marcos Antônio da Silva e Silva

Student of Economics, Universidade Federal de Goiás (UFG)

Coordinator of the chrysalis, project for the social promotion of the pickers of recyclable materials from the Village paper, name given to the garbage dump in the city of Aparecida de Goiânia (GO).